


When Everything is Burning

by chaserzachsmith



Category: Gone Series - Michael Grant
Genre: Gen, I Tried, discussions of death but no really graphic violence, the firebreak from lies that breaks my heart all the time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 09:47:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12814914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaserzachsmith/pseuds/chaserzachsmith
Summary: A look at the firebreak that saved Perdido Beach.





	When Everything is Burning

There is smoke in her eyes and fire so close she can almost feel it, and Dekka Talent is trying to knock down a house. 

She doesn't know how many there have been, by now. She just follows Ellen to another house and waits for Taylor to start shoving kids out and then she cancels gravity below it and lets it back. 

There's a whump sound and then a lot of creaking. There's fire and smoke and a terrifying finality, like if they can't do this now, then it will be the end of the FAYZ. The end of Perdido Beach. 

But Dekka can't let herself think like that, so she cancels gravity again and drops the house again. 

Whump. Then the creaking. 

She coughs into her elbow and almost falls into the house, where Jack and Orc are struggling to knock over the wall nearest to the flames. It’s Howard who grabs her elbow and holds her up and gives her a worried look. Dekka would brush him off and glare, under any other circumstances. 

She claps him on the back and he nods. An agreement of sorts, between two people who can't stand each other and don't want to. 

Jack knocks in the last beam and Dekka lifts the rubble, watches Jack and Orc as they try to bat it further away from the fire. They move onto the next house. 

Ellen and Edilio are standing close to the fire, so close she wonders if they’ll get burned. Howard, this time, runs at the next house. She yells after him, but really trying to yell is useless because the smoke is in her mouth and she has the flu and everything is roaring. 

He reappears with a couple of six year olds she recognizes, pushes them toward the plaza. Taylor comes out of the house a moment later dragging an older kid. 

Taylor and Howard are not the people Dekka would have anticipated running into the houses they're about to knock down. 

Whump. Creaking. Whump. Creaking. 

Jack hits the house from the side, like he’s swinging at a tee-ball. Orc hits from the top, like he's bashing it with a hammer. Dekka watches Ellen and Edilio running together towards a house on fire, and Dekka notices the kids staggering out. One kid with a bad burn on his arm and leg. Edilio picks up the one who's moving slowest and Ellen grabs the other two by the arms and they all sprint. 

Edilio and Ellen were two people that Dekka could have anticipated running into fires like that.

Whump. Creaking. 

Then she lifts the entire mess again and Jack and Orc readjust their grip on their streetlamps to shift the debris. 

Dekka coughs violently and almost drops it all-- Jack shouts and she gasps an apology. 

They move to the next house. 

Something on fire comes at her once, and she only just manages to bat it down. Then her hand is burning and horrible and hurting and Dekka gasps and holds it to her chest.

Whump. Creaking. 

Whump. Creaking. 

Edilio notices the burn a couple houses later, yells that they're almost done anyway. His voice is hoarse, either from yelling or from all the smoke, and he grabs her shoulder and grabs Howard and tells him to get Dekka to Lana fast.

Dekka goes, but she looks back over her shoulder at Jack and Orc still swinging at the house, at Taylor standing by Edilio with her hands over her mouth. 

Howard is hoarse too. Says in a scratchy voice that he’s gonna go right back, don't worry. 

“Lana’s probably got lives to save,” he says. “So she might take a while. And I gotta get back to Orc.”

Dekka nods, out of breath. She coughs into her elbow. 

“There’s some kids talking crazy,” he says. “Some kids saying they saw Caine. Or Drake.” 

He leaves her as soon as they're within view of the plaza, and when she turns around to thank him, he is already jogging back.

Dekka walks back, hours later. Howard and Edilio are both gone, probably back to meet the Council. Taylor and Ellen are gone, too, she had passed them on the way out of the plaza. 

Jack and Orc are still there. Jack is crying, looks like he's been crying for a while. Orc is standing in a ruined house, right in the middle, kicking uselessly at the smashed furniture. Making frustrated noises. 

Dekka sits next to Jack. He might be weak, and cowardly, and with Brianna, but somehow she puts that aside, maybe just for now, and puts her arm around him. 

She wonders how many lives they saved. She wonders how many lives they didn't. She watches Orc grab a broken television and hurl it at the floor, and wonders how they move on.


End file.
